Book picks similar to
The Best American Mystery Stories 2002 by James EllroyJoe Gores
mystery
fiction
anthology
short-stories
The Box: Uncanny Stories
Richard Matheson - 2008
. . someone you don't know. Would you still push the button?"Button, Button," Richard Matheson's chilling tale of greed and temptation, is now the basis of The Box, the new film from the director of Donnie Darko. In addition, this outstanding collection also contains many other unforgettable stories by Matheson, the award-winning author of I Am Legend and What Dreams May Come."The inventive plots and spare but convincing portraits of ordinary men and women caught up in forces beyond their control demonstrate why Stephen King has called Matheson his most significant influence."--Publishers Weekly
Manila Noir
Jessica HagedornR. Zamora Linmark - 2013
As Hagedorn points out in her insightful introduction, Manila is a city burdened with a violent and painful past, with a long heritage of foreign occupation. The specters of WWII (during which the city suffered from U.S. saturation bombing), and the oppressive 20-year reign of dictator Ferdinand Marcos live on in recent memory. The Filipino take on noir includes a liberal dose of the gothic and supernatural, with disappearance and loss being constants."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)"This Southeast sampler is unique, possessing an overall gritty tone. Each slice of supernatural splendor pulls the reader in with their nontraditional heroes…Ultimately, readers get a strong taste of the real Manila and all her dark secrets, wanting more of while being slightly afraid of what she might do next. Manila is the perfect place for noir scenes to occur, and it is easy to get sucked into its deadly nightshade of doom."--Criminal Class PressBrand-new stories by: Lourd De Veyra, Gina Apostol, Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo, F.H. Batacan, Jose Dalisay Jr., Eric Gamalinda, Jessica Hagedorn, Angelo Lacuesta, R. Zamora Linmark, Rosario Cruz-Lucero, Sabina Murray, Jonas Vitman, Marianne Villanueva, and Lysley Tenorio.Manila provides the ideal, torrid setting for an Akashic Noir series volume. It's where the rich rub shoulders with the poor, where five-star hotels coexist with informal settlements, where religious zeal coexists with superstition, and where politics is often synonymous with celebrity and corruption.From the Introduction by Jessica Hagedorn:Manila is not for the faint of heart. Built on water and reclaimed land, it’s an intense, congested, teeming megalopolis, the vital core of an urban network of sixteen cities and one municipality collectively known as Metro Manila. Population: over ten million and growing by the minute. Climate: tropical. Which means hot, humid, prone to torrential monsoon rains of biblical proportions.I think of Manila as the ultimate femme fatale. Complicated and mysterious, with a tainted, painful past. She’s been invaded, plundered, raped, and pillaged, colonized for four hundred years by Spain and fifty years by the US, bombed and pretty much decimated by Japanese and American forces during an epic, month-long battle in 1945.Yet somehow, and with no thanks to the corrupt politicians, the crime syndicates, and the indifferent rich who rule the roost, Manila bounces back. The people’s ability to endure, adapt, and forgive never ceases to amaze, whether it’s about rebuilding from the latest round of catastrophic flooding, or rebuilding from the ashes of a horrific world war, or the ashes of the brutal, twenty-year dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos . . .Many years have passed since the end of the Marcos dictatorship. People are free to write and say what they want, yet nothing is different. The poor are still poor, the rich are still rich, and overseas workers toil in faraway places like Saudi Arabia, Israel, Germany, and Finland. Glaring inequities are a source of dark humor to many Filipinos, but really—just another day in the life . . .Writers from the Americas and Europe are known for a certain style of noir fiction, but the rest of the world approaches the crime story from a culturally unique perspective. In Manila Noir we find that the genre is flexible enough to incorporate flamboyant emotion and the supernatural, along with the usual elements noir fans have come to expect: moody atmospherics, terse dialogue, sudden violence, mordant humor, a fatalist vision.
Guilty as Charged
Scott TurowSusan Dunlap - 1996
This book also includes an introduction by Turow, as its team of top-notch authors take unique perspectives on our criminal justice system with crackling courtroom cases and whodunit suspense.Contents:Introduction by Scott TurowDogs and fleas by John LutzLou Monahan, County prosecutor by Andrew KlavanReal life by Sarah ShankmanKnives at midnight by Marcia MullerJustice by Stuart M. KaminskyCruel and unusual by Carolyn WheatGrip by Jay BrandonBeat routine by Stan WashburnLast licks by Valerie FrankelTurning the witness by Jeremiah HealyThat day at Eagle's Point by Ed GormanCelebrity and justice for all by John JakesFor the good of the firm by Maynard F. ThomsonDead drunk by Lia MateraCourt of celestial appeals by Susan DunlapBoobytrap by Bill Pronzini
Fell of Dark
Reginald Hill - 1971
Then two girls are found murdered in the high fells, and suddenly there's no doubt about it. He's running. Set in his native Cumberland, this was Reginald Hill's very first novel and its cleverly interwoven strands of detective story, psychological thriller and Buchanesque adventure prefigure much that in the intervening decades has taken him into the topmost ranks of British crime fiction.
100 Malicious Little Mysteries
Isaac Asimov - 1981
These tales come from the pen of many well-known writers in the field, including Michael Gilbert, Edward Wellen, Edward D. Hack, Bill Bronzini, Lawrence Treat, and Francis Nevins, Jr. Whether it’s “The Unfriendly Neighbor,” or a “Class Reunion,” “A Recipe for Revenge,” or “An Exercise in Insurance,” these stories are sure to keep you up all night, puzzling over their possible solutions. Each one has its own particular and irresistible appeal: an unexpected twist, a delectable puzzle, a devastating revelation, or perhaps even a refreshing display of pernicious spit
The Vampire Archives
Otto PenzlerLisa Tuttle - 2009
Dark, stormy, and delicious, once it sinks its teeth into you there’s no escape. Vampires! Whether imagined by Bram Stoker or Anne Rice, they are part of the human lexicon and as old as blood itself. They are your neighbors, your friends, and they are always lurking. Now Otto Penzler—editor of the bestselling Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps—has compiled the darkest, the scariest, and by far the most evil collection of vampire stories ever. With over eighty stories, including the works of Stephen King and D. H. Lawrence, alongside Lord Byron and Tanith Lee, not to mention Edgar Allan Poe and Harlan Ellison, The Vampire Archives will drive a stake through the heart of any other collection out there. Other contributors include: Arthur Conan Doyle • Ray Bradbury • Ambrose Bierce • H. P. Lovecraft • Harlan Ellison • Roger Zelazny • Robert Bloch • Clive Barker
Assumed Identity
David Morrell - 1993
Brendan Buchanan is an undercover intelligence operative who has impersonated more than 200 people in the last eight years. But now his multi-personality occupation threatens to destroy him.
Storm Season
J.T. Ellison - 2012
Ellison.One terrifying storm; three thrilling tales.They call it an Alberta Clipper – a massive storm system that rides the jet stream southward from Canada and across the United States. It’s early October, and this storm is unleashing its fury from Illinois to Florida – where it collides with a tropical disturbance and rages up the eastern seaboard. In the midst of the wind, rain and snow, Rockford Homicide Detective M.C. Riggio, FBI profiler Maggie O’Dell, and Nashville Homicide Lieutenant Taylor Jackson find themselves fighting not just the elements, but three diabolical killers ...Rockford, Illinois – A young co-ed’s body is pulled from the Rock River, and Violent Crimes Bureau Detective Mary Catherine “M.C.” Riggio and her partner, Kitt Lundgren, quickly learn that things are not always as they appear at first glance. When it’s determined that the girl’s death was no accident, the detectives start collecting information about her life – and discover a connection that hits too close to home for M.C. With a major winter weather system moving in and threatening to shut down the city, M.C. and Kitt race to fit together the scattered pieces of a chilling puzzle – one that may prove more devastating than the storm.Pensacola, Florida – FBI Agent Maggie O’Dell is about to do something she swore she’d never do again: climb into a helicopter. Worse, that helicopter is about to take her out over the Gulf of Mexico, in the face of a nasty storm system that has already dumped rain and snow in record-breaking amounts across the eastern half of the country. But a U.S. Senator’s family has gone missing aboard their houseboat, and Maggie and her partner, R.J. Tully, have been dispatched from Washington, D.C. to accompany the rescue crew on their search. While Tully remains on shore to ferret out clues as to what happened to the boat, Maggie flies out with the Coast Guard to find it. With wind and rain threatening to knock their chopper out of the sky, Maggie and Coast Guard rescue swimmer Liz Bailey board the houseboat in an effort to save the Senator’s family – only to discover an even greater danger on board.Washington, D.C. – Metro Nashville Homicide Lieutenant Taylor Jackson has reluctantly agreed to take the place of her fiancé, FBI profiler John Baldwin, as a presenter at the annual Freedom Conference – a foreign intelligence initiative attended by the best in the business of ‘clandestine services’. Then a blizzard effectively isolates their hotel on Chesapeake Bay – no power, no generators, and no possibility of outside help. When two guests go missing, and one of them is found dead in his room, Taylor discovers an assassin amongst the spies – one with a deadly score to settle.In STORM SEASON, Erica Spindler, Alex Kava and J.T. Ellison team up to bring you their most exciting thriller novella yet!
Dirty White Boys
Stephen Hunter - 1994
With a lion in his soul, he roars--for he is the meanest, deadliest animal on the loose....Odell is Lamar's cousin, a hulking manchild with unfeeling eyes. He lives for daddy Lamar. Surely he will die for him....Richard's survival hangs on a sketch: a crude drawing of a lion and a half-naked woman. For this Lamar has let Richard live....Armed to the teeth, Lamar and his boys have cut a path of terror across the Southwest, and pushed one good cop into a crisis of honor and conscience. Trooper Bud Pewtie should have died once at Lamar's hands. Now they're about to meet again. And this time, only one of them will walk away....
Thriller 2: Stories You Just Can't Put Down
Clive CusslerHarry Hunsicker - 2009
The highly anticipated Thriller 2: Stories You Just Can't Put Down is even bigger. From Jeffery Deaver's tale of international terrorism to Lisa Jackson's dysfunctional family in the California wine country to Ridley Pearson's horrifying serial killer, this collection has something for everyone. Twenty-three bestselling and hot new authors in the genre have submitted original stories to make up this unforgettable blockbuster.
Patricia Cornwell Five Scarpetta Novels
Patricia Cornwell - 2011
Don't miss these five novels featuring Scarpetta, Virginia medical examiner and FBI consultant, from the #1 New York Times bestselling master of crime fiction. Cause of Death Unnatural Exposure Point of Origin Black Notice Trace
MatchUp
Lee ChildSandra Brown - 2017
Eleven of the world’s best female thriller writers from Diana Gabaldon to Charlaine Harris are paired with eleven of the world’s best male thriller writers, including John Sandford, C.J. Box, and Nelson DeMille. The stories are edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child and feature:-Lee Coburn and Joe Pickett in “Honor & …” by Sandra Brown and C.J. Box -Tony Hill and Roy Grace in “Footloose” by Val McDermid and Peter James -Temperance Brennan and Jack Reacher in “Faking a Murderer” by Kathy Reichs and Lee Child -Jamie Fraser and Cotton Malone in “Past Prologue” by Diana Gabaldon and Steve Berry -Liz Sansborough and Rambo in “Rambo on Their Minds” by Gayle Lynds and David Morrell -Jeffrey Tolliver and Joe Pritchard in “Short Story” by Karin Slaughter and Michael Koryta -Harper Connelly and Ty Hauck in “Dig Here” by Charlaine Harris and Andrew Gross -Regan Pescoli and Virgil Flowers in “Deserves to be Dead” by Lisa Jackson and John Sandford -Lucan Thorne and Lilliane in “Midnight Flame” by Lara Adrian and Christopher Rice -Bennie Rosato and John Corey in “Getaway” by Lisa Scottoline and Nelson DeMille -Ali Reynolds and Bravo Shaw in “Taking the Veil” by J.A. Jance and Eric Van Lustbader
Irène
Pierre Lemaitre - 2006
Worse still, the press seem to have it in for him – his every move is headline news. When he discovers that the killer has killed before – that each murder is a homage to a classic crime novel – the fourth estate are quick to coin a nickname… The Novelist…With both men in the public eye, the case develops into a personal duel, each hell-bent on outsmarting the other. There can only be one winner – whoever has the least to lose…
James Moriarty, Consulting Criminal
Andy Weir - 2017
He solves cases with the able assistance of his close friend and confidant. And, one day, he will become the arch enemy of Sherlock Holmes.Meet Professor James Moriarty - consulting criminal.In these three original tales - collected for the first time - Andy Weir brings to life a Moriarty worthy of the Great Detective himself.1. The Adventure of the Dishonor Among Thieves2. The Adventure of the Unscrupulous Assassin3. The Adventure of the Sealed Room